Everyone knows that the foolish ruling Republicans in the Tennessee House of Representatives expelled two freshmen Democrats, Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, on some specious charges on April 6, a partisan move that backfired when both men were promptly reinstated. But just six days later, the foolish ruling Republicans in the Arizona House of Representatives did the same thing to freshman Republican Liz Harris, ejecting her.
Let’s hope this wrongful expulsion wave doesn’t spread to the 48 other states.
Some of the particulars are different: The two Justins were charged with “disorderly behavior” for correctly advocating for action on guns after three kids and three adults were shot dead at a Nashville school not far from the Tennessee State Capitol. Out West, Harris is a much less sympathetic case. She is a crackpot election denier, who invited an even kookier conspiracy theorist to a legislative hearing in February. At that hearing, the invited nut foamed against everyone, including the Democratic governor, the GOP House speaker, judges and others as being tied in with the Mexican drug cartels and the Mormon Church and you get the idea.
But no matter her distasteful politics, Harris broke no law and deserved to be defeated by the voters.
An embarrassment to the Republicans, Harris was the target of a Democratic ethics complaint that found that by bringing in someone who made the outlandish allegations Harris had “engaged in disorderly behavior,” just like the Tennessee pair, and the rant at the hearing had “undermined the public’s confidence in this institution.” What undermined the public’s confidence is for politicians to override the will of the voters.
The Tennessee expulsion was on strictly party lines, the GOP supermajority ganging up on the Democrats, with the sole exception of Republican Charlie Baum, who wisely voted against the expulsions. In Arizona, with a narrowly divided 31-29 GOP edge, every Democrat voted to expel Harris, while her fellow Republicans split, 18 for expulsion and 13 opposed.
Two wrongs in Nashville makes for another wrong in Phoenix. Enough already.
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